Despite what they're saying, I'd guess it's the totally-not-a-recession that's happening and they foresee people cutting luxury expenses (ie patreon subs) and they're trying to get ahead of it.
Locally at least, luxury services are booming. Patreon probably isn't a "luxury" in the traditional sense, but it's certainly a luxury for the lower/middle class. Agreed on the "totally-not-a-recession" reasoning - I'm just always curious which businesses are insulated from this type of economic headwind.
What market is Patreon even in – the "facilitating crowdfunding for anyone looking to create things" market? There's not much competition there and I can't imagine it's profoundly changed in the last 6 years, let alone months.
Substack is a huge competitor that has grown dramatically in that time. Beehiiv is another competitor that just launched a bunch of new features. Porn and sexy content is now on Onlyfans, which was just becoming mainstream during the pandemic.
More recently, some podcasts have started focusing on YouTube and may be less interested in the paid-elsewhere subscription model.
I guess this is the "reason" but obviously they aren't elaborating. It's odd they picked "6 months" - what changed in "the market"?